


On the Other Side

by OhMyGlobWhatthefrickamievendoing



Series: the other side of here [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Accidentally In Love plays in the background, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Dark Bruce Wayne, Good Jeremiah Valeska, M/M, Minor Violence, Prompt Fill, Protective Bruce Wayne, platonic intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 13:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14895420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhMyGlobWhatthefrickamievendoing/pseuds/OhMyGlobWhatthefrickamievendoing
Summary: In which Bruce Wayne meets Jerome Valeska's twin brother and also bakes a cake.Tumblr prompt fill for evil!bruce and good!jeremiah





	On the Other Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jirrijirri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jirrijirri/gifts).



> My first fic after an year!! I had fun with this one!

“I want you to meet him. Get him to trust you. Bat your lil’ doe eyes and draw him out of his little hidey hole. _Bring him to me_ ,” Jerome hisses in his ear, and he doesn’t have to look up from where he’s patching a tear in Jon’s mask to know that Jerome’s eyes are alight with that madness, _that fire,_ so similar yet different from his own, that had drawn him here; to this dingy little warehouse crawling with the worst Gotham had to offer, _to this life_ , where the only thing that made him feel alive was the blood of another on his hands as they slipped away from this world.

But he does anyway. He looks up and meets those eyes, cruel and beautiful. Takes in the way Jerome is practically vibrating in his seat, teeth gritted in an imitation of a smile that stretches past his lips as he tries, and fails, to hold in the occasional giggle. He takes in the drooped shoulders and the swallow, sickly looking face, the bags under his eyes, that make him look like a man who hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten. A madman on his deathbed.

“Okay,” says Bruce.

 

* * *

 

Bruce doesn’t know what to expect when he first meets Jeremiah Valeska. He hears the words _identical twin_ and imagines red hair and green eyes, scars that stretch across his cheeks, a barely contained madness, all fire and destruction, that threatens to consume all those around. He imagines someone who has been broken down and badly put together.

So, it comes as a little bit of a surprise when he follows Jim into that underground labyrinth and instead gets exactly the opposite of what he’s expecting. Jeremiah Valeska is cold and aloof, ice to his brother’s fire. Well put together. A perfectly functioning machine. Sane. Whole.

 _Unbroken._  
  
Bruce has to quickly avert his gaze, let his eyes catch on the models and schematics present in the room, anything to distract himself from the wave of hatred and anger that threatens to overtake him. Anger at the unfairness of the world. Anger at Jeremiah for not suffering. All fuelled by the intense protectiveness he feels whenever he thinks of Jerome’s hunched, almost skeletal body, quivering with laughter.

Thoughts of Jerome bring him back to why he is here. Makes him turn around and introduce himself. Makes him hold onto the cold hand in his a little longer. Makes him gently squeeze that hand, as he looks into Jeremiah Valeska’s eyes, cold and beautiful. As he says, sincerely and earnestly, because it’s true and he can plainly see that, “You have a brilliant mind.”

Sees the first cracks appear in that perfect shell.

 

* * *

 

“Do you want to kill him?” he had asked before, Jerome’s head on his lap and Bruce’s hand in his hair.

“Hmmmmm, maybe…,” says Jerome distractedly, eyes fixed on the tv, “the food _was_ cold…but Gotham’s traffic’s a _b-i-y-atch_ …maybe we should blow up a hospital? Do the city a favour and reduce the congestion? Whatdya think kiddo?”

Bruce rolls his eyes fondly and tugs on Jerome’s hair harshly.

Jerome cackles.

“Your brother. Jeremiah. Do you want to kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to?”

“No.”

Bruce hums, tracing one of Jerome’s scars.

“I want to drive him mad. Crack him open. Show them _all_ he’s _just like me._ Ugly. A monster.”

Bruce hums again.

“Okay,” he says, hand going back into Jerome’s hair.

 

* * *

 

Bruce looks at Jeremiah as Jeremiah looks at Jerome.  
  
Like this he looks less like a robot. Clothes crumbled and hair dishevelled, as he wipes at his eyes and tries to pretend he’s not crying over his dead brother.  
  
Bruce knows Jerome had plans. Plans for Jeremiah if he died. Plans to be reborn, greater than ever, through Jeremiah. But Bruce has his own. What fun would it be to break Jeremiah down through a simple spray of Jerome’s insanity gas when Bruce could do it himself, slowly and thoroughly, starting with cracking Jeremiah’s cold shell.  
  
He knows Jerome would approve.

 

* * *

 

“What –?”

“Food. I thought you might be hungry.”

“You got past the labyrinth.”

“Well, yes. It’s amazing really. The fact that you designed it – it’s…amazing. You’re amazing.”

 

* * *

 

“What’s this?”

“Ah, well, that’s. something else that I’m working on. It’s boring.”

“You could tell me about it. If you want. I like hearing you talk. It’s nice. You get really passionate about your work. It’s… _nice._ ”  
  
“Oh.”

 

* * *

 

“Thai. And _The Labyrinth._ ”

“I’ve never had Thai. Or watched _The Labyrinth_.”

“You’ll like it.”

“Both?”

“Both.”

 

* * *

 

“ _Mario Cart?_ ”

“ _Mario Cart._ ”

 

* * *

 

“What’s it this time then?”

“Cake.”

“You bought cake?”

“I _baked_ a cake.”

“You bake?”

“Sure. Alfred says knowing basic life skills is a must.”

“I don’t know how to bake.”

“I could teach you…we could bake a cake…or cookies! Or maybe a pie!…or um, whatever you want…”

“I’ll trust your judgment.”

 

* * *

 

Baking as it turns out is a disaster.  
  
Less because they are both covered in flour and because there’s cake batter dripping from the ceiling due to an impromptu food fight, and more because cold, robotic Jeremiah Valeska is laughing. Covered in flour and cake batter, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and hair sticking up from one side, glasses slipping down his nose, head thrown back as giggles turn to joyous cackles.

And Bruce feels his stomach clench. Feels something well up in his chest. Looks at Jeremiah Valeska as he is now and can’t find that seemingly endless well of hatred and anger.

Looks at Jeremiah Valeska and feels that familiar need _to protect._

Looks at Jeremiah Valeska and sees Jerome Valeska.

Looks at Jeremiah Valeska and sees someone who couldn’t be more unlike Jerome Valeska.

Looks at Jeremiah Valeska and thinks _oh shit._

 

* * *

 

Bruce shouldn’t be surprised that the plan didn’t work. This is Gotham, things rarely workout the way they should.

Should have let Jerome’s followers give Jeremiah the insanity gas. Should have sat back and watched.  
  
Shouldn’t have interfered.  
  
And now each time he looks at Jeremiah, with his soft eyes and softer smiles, and _knows_ that he can’t break him, now that he has finally earned his trust, maybe even his _love, knows_ that he can’t bring himself to go about systematically breaking that trust, he feels as he betrays Jerome.

Breaks _Jerome’s_  trust.

 

* * *

 

It happens when they are on the sofa. Surrounded by takeout boxes and watching something or another on the tv. Jeremiah’s head on his lap and Bruce’s hand in his hair. Jeremiah snorts, inelegantly, eyes still fixed on the tv. Bruce bends down and presses his lips to Jeremiah’s.

They’re soft.  
  
The kiss is quick and gentle. Chaste. Nothing like the sloppy, drunk things he exchanged with the girls and boys and all others in the clubs. Nothing like the desperate, biting things with Selina. Nothing like the wet smack of Jerome’s lips on his cheek before he ruffled Bruce’s hair and sauntered off.

Bruce pulls back, fingers still threaded through Jeremiah’s hair. Jeremiah watches him with wide eyes, lips just slightly parted and cheeks flushed.

“Oh,” says Jeremiah.

“Oh,” says Bruce.

 

* * *

 

“ _He’s mine_ ,” Bruce growls, teeth bared and his face splattered with blood as he continues to drive his fist into the man long after he had stopped breathing. One of Jerome’s many followers. Eyes wild, as he had suggested ending what Jerome had started. _Finishing off Jeremiah Valeska._ Driving him to madness that would put him in a grave.  
  
“He’s _mine_ ,” he says, standing and stepping over the body at his feet, to his audience, with their painted faces and colourful clothes.  
  
“You’re mine,” he says, as they take a step towards him, enraptured.

“Gotham’s mine,” he says, as he feels Jon and Jervis flank him on either side.

 

* * *

 

Bruce knows that eventually it’ll all catch up to them.  
  
Knows that the madness that Jerome saw within his brother, that Bruce sees within Jeremiah each time someone compares him to his brother or implies he’s not as smart as he actually is, will continue to leak out. Whether that madness consumes Jeremiah, like it did Jerome, or whether he’d continue to fight it, however, is something Bruce knows only time and circumstance will tell.  
  
Bruce knows that one day the act of billionaire brat will no longer hold. Knows that one day he’ll have to look at Jim Gordon, with blood on his hands and Gotham on its knees, and say, “You failed this city. But I will not. I will tear it down and build it up. I will _protect it._ ”

Knows that one day him and Jeremiah may be on opposite sides. May be opposing forces.

But for now, for now this is enough. Sitting here listening to Jeremiah as he talks, fast and excited, about one of his projects, born through one of the many ideas that sprang from his brilliant mind.

For now, this is enough.

  


**Author's Note:**

> So I'd love to get feedback pls! And send me prompts!
> 
> Probably gonna write a prequel on how bruce and jerome became pals
> 
> I headcanon bruce as pansexual, clark as demisexual along with canon bisexual diana :P


End file.
